Introspection
by Mr Trick
Summary: Set before the Buffy series. Spike questions what it is to be a vampire. He has a captive audience. Literally. This one's for Kitty Montague, my favourite author.


Introspection  
  
The girl just stared, wild eyed. She no longer tried to scream, she was past that. It didn't do any good.   
To scream was to cling to hope and here there was none.  
Fronds of matted hair hung across her face like vines, framing tear tracks that forged clean paths through the dust on her face. They vanished as they reached the filthy cloth that served as a gag and restricted her breathing to short, stacatto nasal gasps.  
She had long since ceased to struggle but her heart refused to slow.  
  
Her name was Jemima. She had never liked the name but it was given to her by her father and it was not her place to complain. She was sixteen years old and on the verge of womanhood, just opening her eyes to the galaxy of new possibilities that her maturing body, and mind, afforded her.   
Jemima was not beautiful nor was she ugly, rather she had a certain plain-ness that allowed her to pass through life with a degree of anonymity. 'Just Jemima' people called her, as in; 'Who's that?', 'Oh that's just Jemima'.  
She wasn't just Jemima here. Here she was something entirely different.  
  
The creature paced before her, it's head bowed, measuring it's strides as if they were part of some greater design. It was human in appearance, not large but lean and wiry, each movement accompanied by an alomst tangible aura of restrained power. And it was fast.  
Jemima recalled only vaguely being aware of the figure before it took her. The scream started as a knot of fear in her stomach and never got any further. As if the shadows had closed around her and claimed her for their own.   
When she opened her eyes she found herself in a small and unremarkable cellar, hewn from rough stone blocks and bare save for a table and the coarse wooden chair to which she was bound. A thick carpet of dust was largely undisturbed, a testament to the infrequency of use of the room. A number of stunted candles held tremulous flames, swaying in the thrall of an unknown draft and from this light Jemima was able to pick out a single door across the room.  
However, between the two stood the creature. And then the screaming started.  
  
For a long time he had just watched her thrash, wail and sob in terror, occasionally cocking his head in interest as Jemima continued to struggle against her heavy binding. As the storm of her panic faded into silent weeping a resignation took her and she raised her head to the monster and gazed into the abyss.  
  
It's features were impossibly distorted into a permanent snarl, exposing teeth like unsheathed daggers. It stared at her, through her, and it became evident to Jemima that the worst thing, that which inspired her greatest dread, were it's eyes. Those eyes shone with a malevolent radiance that betrayed not a trace of humanity.  
It had watched her terror...and enjoyed it.  
  
Spike studied the girl. She was not unattractive and could be considered to possess a simple, uncomplicated beauty. The dried blood crusted about her slender wrists fired the hunger within him. She was a fighter and that in itself was an attractive quality.  
Perhaps, a few years ago, Spike himself may have found her attractive. But that was a different person. That was William and William would have written her some lamentable rubbish and she would have laughed in his face.  
But William died the instant that Spike was born. As the fangs sank effortlessly into William's neck it was Spike who felt the power coursing through his body, every nerve afflame with vigour. And as William's stifled scream signalled the end of his mortal life it was Spike who roared in freedom as the shackles of his former existence were cast aside.  
  
And for the last three years he hadn't written any lamentable rubbish.  
  
And now nobody laughed at him.  
  
The vampire closed his eyes and felt the calm wash over him, he was transcendant of the petty emotions and worries that had plagued William on a daily basis. The change had altered his perception, swept away all of the cluttered thoughts and replaced them with a purity of focus. He was now a predator and he saw as a predator sees. His existence was defined in terms of the hunt, and the prey.  
His eyes opened. William may have looked upon her and seen something beautiful.   
Spike saw lunch.  
  
He smiled.  
  
Spike moved to the table, the candle flickered timidly as he passed. "Well my pretty.." he began, a slow deliberation about his words. He reached for a bottle resting on the rough wooden surface and raised it to his lips. The liquid set a fire in his stomach as he drank and flames licked the back of his throat. A lip smack of satisfaction and his attention was returned to the girl.  
"..I suppose you are wondering why you are here."  
He paused, a finger resting lightly on his lips.  
"No, I suppose you already have a pretty good idea of why you are here. And you'd be right. What you are wondering is why, in that case, are you still alive?"  
"Good question." He drank again followed by a slight pause, bathing in her fear. "Well I must confess, it's for my own selfish reasons. I find that a little pre-dinner conversation works wonders for my appetite."  
The vampire spun to face his prey. His face wrought with concern. "I know that it's rude to play with your food but I hope that you can find it in your heart to forgive me."  
"And if you can't find it in your heart then perhaps I can take a look?" He suppressed a dry laugh and slugged back another measure, the warm feeling spreading to his limbs.  
"Look, I realise that I may not have been the most gracious host so if you ask to leave I wont stand in your way". He stood aside exposing the iron bound door.  
Jemima strained against her gag tasting the filth, her body tensed with the effort and fresh blood oozed from her wrists as the ropes bit deeper. She slumped back into the chair.  
"No? Why I'm touched. You see, being a vampire, I do occasionally forget the little things like manners", Spike confessed.  
"Why, I don't even know your name. I think I'll call you......lunch." He said with a grin.  
  
The vampire prowled, circling Jemima, bearing every resemblance to a panther, something that could be described as graceful were it not so deadly.  
"You see Lunch, three years ago I went through a change. I became something beyond humanity. I ceased to live but I started to be."  
He bent closer to Jemima. She could smell the alcohol on his breath, he could smell the fear on hers.  
"But I never questioned why."  
"I went for three years living the life denied to me by my humanity. I took revenge on those who had mocked me and a few more just for fun."  
His eyes met Jemimas for just a second but it was long enough for her to guess that she formed part of this latter category.  
"Perhaps I'm maturing as a demonic entity but recently I've started to question..."  
  
This episode was not just theatre on Spike's behalf. He had been thinking. He lacked the necessary philosophical detachment to consider the origin of vampirism. He was not concerned with how his race had begun, how demon and man had merged to create a creature of the darkness, condemned to prey upon it's former family, a creature of pure fear. This was just as well for the answer would have shocked him.  
What Spike was concerned with were the paradoxes which lay a little closer to home.  
  
He took another swig from the bottle.  
"You see this.." He thrust the bottle into the air, "Is one of the things that I don't understand."  
"I'm getting drunk!"  
He spun around, arms spread, palms facing the ceiling.  
"How?" Spike alomst implored. "I'm not alive, how can I get drunk? How can alcohol effect a dead man?" He laughed at the lunacy of it all.  
Strangely, Jemima thought, Spike's laugh was just as disturbing as his snarl.  
He stopped and took another long swig from the bottle.  
" I'm not complaining mind you, bloody love this stuff."  
"But it's a thought though isn't it?"  
"My heart doesn't beat, my organs don't function, blood doesn't pump through my veins. But watch this."  
The blond vampire stepped over to the table and in one fluid movement snapped off a huge splinter of wood and drove it through his palm. Blood spattered onto the dusty floor with the impact and then began to flow steadily down the splinter and pool among the dust. Spike watched in fascination. He looked up at the young girl, an almost triumphant look upon his face.  
"See? If blood cannot flow through my body then how do I bleed? If I am not alive how can I heal?"  
Blood streamed from the vampire's hand but he seemed unconcerned, taking up the bottle once more.  
Spike paced. Every step caused the thick dust carpetting the cellar floor to swirl around his feet in minature eddies.  
"But I do heal."  
"I heal, I sweat, I get tired, I get frustrated. Why Lunch? Why should that happen?"  
He slumped against the wall, puzzlement sharing his face with the hate. Without any visible pain he withdrew the splinter from his hand. Already the bleeding had stopped.  
"I'll tell you something Lunch, and I only say this because I know that you will never leave this room.  
When I was William I was weak. I was small and runty and weak." He focussed on Jemima, the snarl returning to his lips.  
"I'm no longer weak. In fact now I am strong, stronger than I could have ever dreamed." He stopped and took a deep breath followed by another drink.  
"I have killed my own kind." He said with a chill. "I have sought to test my mettle against those who, when mortal, were big men, bad, bad men. Men who would have killed William without breaking a sweat. But as vampires they all fell to Spike.   
And maybe that's it. Maybe it's only the hate driving me on. My contempt for my mortal self fuels my dark self. I'm a mirror image of William. I am as strong as he was weak.  
The vampire exhaled through those teeth.  
And now I'm the thing that the night fears.   
Now I'm the big bad."  
  
Spike launched himself into another prowl.  
Jemima was certain that this was not the first time that the vampire had thought these things but it was probably the first time that he had put them into words. He was zealous, ragged ideas forming as he paced.   
  
"And sunlight kills me? What's the bloody story there? Sunlight never hurt William, why should it hurt me?"  
The panther continued to prowl, shaking his head slowly.  
His captive regarded him with a cold hatred diluted by fear. She was certain that she would die at the hands of this monster.  
  
"Perhaps I'm a monster?" Spike ventured.   
"Perhaps there is a creature within me that makes these things happen?"   
He stopped himself. "But they are human things." He raised his head skywards as if looking for an answer.  
Finding nothing he returned his attention to the bottle, draining it with long gulps.  
  
"You know, for a long time I thought that I was essentially a human who had been altered. I was stronger, I fed differently and I belonged to the night. But I thought I was still human."  
"Bloody idiot."  
"I stopped being human the second I started being a vampire. The two just don't mix. They're too different." He circled the bound girl.  
"It's not just the physical. I think differently, I see things differently. I am one with the night and I can hear it call to me in a thousand choirs of pain and fear. It's the most incredible sensation." He chuckled.  
"You could almost say that I have never felt so alive."  
  
With a sharp, snap of his wrist Spike threw the bottle against the far wall. It shattered into fragments against the rough stone.  
"But I cannot feel. Not completely".  
He stumbled a little, the rythmic pacing interrupted.  
"I cannot see the world the way that I once did. I cannot feel the music, I cannot appreciate the poetry...."  
He lapsed into silence for a short time.  
  
"I used to write poetry you know. Oh yes, I was quite the sensitive soul.  
Back when I had one of course".  
"I was trying to impress a girl, completely besotted I was." He shook his head. "I wanted her to call me William the poet. Instead she named me William the bloody stupid."  
Spike smiled.  
  
"In a way I suppose I did impress her. She saw what she thought was William and she began to mock me with her little pet name.  
What she got was Spike and she never quite managed to get to 'stupid'."  
  
"But she did get bloody." The vampire chuckled a gallows laugh. "Still got my sense of humour." He remarked, "Or have I just developed one?"  
"You see Lunch, that's the problem." Spike stumbled again, imperceptibly almost but Jemima noticed that the alcohol was taking effect.  
"I'm looking at this in human terms, trying to understand it from a human perspective. From William's perspective."  
  
Spike gazed upon the broken glass nestling in the dust.  
"That's how William looks to me now."  
"I can see the individual fragments without being able to appreciate that they were once a bottle."  
  
The vampire's features softened, taking on a human appearance, almost forlorn in the flickering light.  
"I cannot feel. The beauty, the emotion, the little things that make life complicated. This is my strength."  
Spike sank to the ground, his back resting against the wall, hugging his knees to his chin.  
"It is also my weakness." He stated firmly.  
  
Jemima watched, still terrified but now with a tinge of curiosity. This nightmare creature was a torturer. But was he also tortured?  
Spike lay his head back against the stone of the cellar wall and gazed at the ceiling.  
"You see Lunch, I've been giving it a bit of thought. All the contradictions; the breathing, the healing,". He glanced at the broken glass, "the drinking. And do you know what I think?"  
  
"Belief." He smiled almost a human smile but with a frosted edge. "It sounds crazy now that I say it aloud, although I have always been comfortable with my insanity you understand."  
He sighed. "Belief is a powerful tool."  
"I once met this witch, she was a feisty young thing, not unlike yourself. She was trying to cast a defence spell but when she looked at her scrolls and her artefacts all she saw were strange words and animal bones. She couldn't see how they could stop the big bad monster."  
  
A half smile. "And they didn't."  
  
"The point is her spell failed not because she didn't say the right words or do the right things but because she didn't believe it would work. She stopped believing in the magic."  
"It cost her..dearly."  
"What I'm trying to say, my delicious young friend, is that maybe things happen because we believe that they will. Maybe it doesn't matter a fig whether I heal or not. Maybe I just believe I will." Spike raised his palm to Jemima. The skin looked soft and unbroken where, moments before, there was a jagged, ugly wound.  
"Perhaps, when I drink a whole bottle of whiskey I expect to get drunk." To punctuate this the vampire released a long, low belch. "Which, I don't mind telling you, I am a little now."  
"But these things don't need to happen. My body no longer follows the same biological rules that apply to humans but my mind doesn't know any better. I still believe that these things will happen so maybe that's why they do." He paused before adding, "Belief is a powerful thing Lunch."  
Spike ran a hand through his bedraggled ash blond hair, scratched his head and chuckled.  
"You know I never cared for Christ when I was alive and I care less for him now I'm dead. But still I fear the crucifix. It has the power of belief attached to it by millions of people. Every cross represents the tangible belief that good will triumph over evil. It's not the cross that holds the power but the belief behind the cross."  
  
"Crazy huh? This whole existence is just smoke and mirrors. It's illusion. It's cabaret."  
There was a pregnant silence before Spike lowered his head onto his knees.  
"Maybe I can overcome it. Maybe I can overcome all of it. Maybe I can feel again."  
  
"Maybe not."  
Then there was silence.  
  
Jemima waited. She had explored new continents of fear this night, never daring to hope. He would see hope and punish it. Accept death and it would be easier. She had assured herself that it would be quick and had even tried to see the positives in not being a servant any longer, of going to a better place, without the master with the beatings and sly gropes that were characteristic of her life before tonight.  
But Spike didn't move. He hadn't moved for long minutes and hope began to creep into the young girls thoughts. The master's beatings and advances didn't seem as bad now that she knew there were bigger monsters out there.  
Her eyes wild, tears forgotten, Jemima scanned the room and her gaze almost instantly falling upon the shards of broken glass.  
She gently pushed her weight towards the right and the flimsy chair edged just a little closer to the glass. The thick carpet of dust muffled whatever sound the chair made but her eyes still never left the vampire as she edged gradually closer to her goal.  
Her hands were still bound, blood caked wrists were testament to the strength of her bonds. The young girl screwed up her eyes, the effort of thought almost paralysing her.  
Perhaps she didn't need to free her hands. Slender arms inched their way further into the bonds, slowly working them up beyond the wrists.  
Jemima had reached the wall, snake trails marking her progress, one eye always on the sleeping captor.  
This was the dangerous part, she pushed up onto her tiptoes and threw her weight backwards. The chair toppled and slammed into the wall with a thud.  
The girls heart leapt into her throat as the vampire stirred. Tears once again began to trace a dusty track down her cheeks. Epochs passed before she dared move again, suspended at an angle between the floor and the wall. Once more she thrust her arms against the ropes, still precious air between the broken glass and her grasping fingers. She dared not move the chair any further and so it was her slim, pale forearms that suffered the rough bite of the ropes as her fingers finally closed around the neck of the bottle and began working it against her restraints with quiet gusto.  
Within minutes Jemima was free of the ropes and taking high wire steps towards the door. She gazed over at her caqptor, he was still curled into a ball, seemingly tiny compared to the monster who had snared her.  
  
Jemima's hand closed around the handle, freedom a moment away. And in that moment, that eternal moment, she decided to fight these creatures who preyed upon man. She had no idea how, that was a decision for the future, but she would fight.  
  
She turned the handle. Nothing. She tried again. The door did not budge. No, this wasn't happening. She was so close. Gripped by panic Jemima tugged at the door, her weight ineffectual against the heavy lock. She began to sob involuntarily, bloody fists pounding the door, uncontrolably wailing her dirge.  
  
Spike's head snapped up, eyes flashing open, his face jigsawed darkness. A hiss issued forth like released steam.  
"Introspection", stated the vampire. "Always makes me hungry." 


End file.
